Shoot 'Em Up Shakespeare

"Who doesn't want to put on cowboy boots and swing around a couple of six-shooters?" asks director Geoffrey Kent about a new production of Macbeth that has undergone a downright do-over. An eighteen-member boots- and bridle-shuckin' Colorado cast, led by William Hahn and Karen Slack, has carved the classic Shakespearean tale into a good ol' Wild West gunslinger.

The buckaroo Bard's yarn follows Macbeth, a retuning war hero, on his destructive hornswoggle of deception and greed. "In the Old West of Colorado, people had power because they claimed it," says Kent. "All of us have done things to get what we want, but ultimately we draw a line. Macbeth doesn't."

Kent knocks the play down-home a few notches by setting the scene and the dialogue in a dusty gold-rush town, but he claims the homespun production shoots purdy straight and true: "You know, hangings have been around since there was rope."

Macbeth runs Thursday to Sunday through November 17 at Buntport Theater, 717 Lipan Street. Tickets, $20, are available at 720-290-1104 or www.cowboymacbeth.org.